The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-09-30
Thankful Blossom
A Romance of the Jerseys, l779.
BY BRET HARTC.
copyrighted by Houghton, Mllin & Co., ana
published by arrangement with them,l
BY BRET HARTC.
CHAPTER I.

the locality, Morristown, N. j.
1t was bitterly cold. A northeasterly
wind had been stiffening the mud of the
mornings thaw into rigid record of that
days wayfaring on the Baskingridge road.
The hoof prints of cavalry, the deep ruts
left by baggage wagons, and the deeper
channels worn by artillery, lay stark and
cold in the waning light of an April day.
There were icicles on the fences, rhine Of
silver on the windward bark of naples,
and occasional bare spots on the rocky
protuberances of the road, as if nature
had worn herself out at the knees and ell
bows through long waiting for the tardy
spring. A few leaves disinterred by the
thaw became crisp again, and rustled in
the wind, making the summer thing so
remote that all human hope and conjec-
ture fled before them.
Here and there the wayside fences and
walls were broken down or dismantled;
and beyond them fields of snow down.
trodden and discOlored and strewn with
fragments of leather, camp equipage, har-
ness and cast off clothing, showed traces
of the recent encampment and congrega-
ton of men. On some there were still
standing the ruins of rudely constructed
cabins, or the semblance of fertilization
equally rude and incomplete. A fox
stealing along half filled ditch. wolf
Sinking behind an earthwork, typified the
human abandonment and desolation.
One by one the faint sunset tints faded
from the sky; the far off crests of the
Orange hills grew darker; the nearer files
of pines ON the Whatnong mountain be-
came mere black backgrounds; and with
the coming on of night came too an icy 81
lence that seemed to stiffen and arrest the
very wind itself The crisp leaves no
longer rustled; the waving whips of alder
and willow snapped no longer; the icicles
no longer dropped a cold fruitage from
barren branch and spray, and the roadside
trees relapsed into stony quiet so that the
sound of horses hoofs breaking through
the thin, dull, lusterless films of ice that
patched the furrowed road might have
been heard by the nearest Continental
picket mile away.
Either a knowledge of this, or the diff
culties of the road evidently irritated the
viewless horseman. Long before he be-
came visible, his voice was heard in half
suppressed objurgation of the road, of his
beast, of the country generally. "Steady,
you jade'' "Jump, you devil, jump!''
Course the road, and the beggarly farm
ers that burst not mend it!'' And then
the moving bulk of horse and rider sud-
denly arose above the hill, f1oundered and
splashed, and then as suddenly disap-
peared, and the rattling hoof beats ceased.
The stranger had turned into deserted
lane still cushioned with untrodden snow
A stone wall ON one hand-in better keep
ing and condition than the boundary
monuments of the outlying fields-be-
spoke protection and exclusiveness. Half
way up the lane the rider checked his
speed, and, dismounting, tied his horse to
a wayside sapling. This done, he went
cautiously forward toward the end of the
lane, and a farmhouse from whose gable
window a light twinkled through the
deepening night. Suddenly he stopped,
hesitated, and uttered an impatient ejacu-
lation. He turned sharply on his heel,
and retraced his steps until opposite q
farm shed that stood a few PAGES from the
wall. Hard by, large elm cast the
gaunt shadow of it's leafless limbs on the
wall and surrounding snow. The stranger
stepped into this shadow, and at once
seemed to become part of it's trembling
intricacies.
At the present moment it was certainly
III II For. frx-c T1av.o
yet clinging to the trunk of the tree, and
n film of ice on its bark; the adjacent wall
was slippery with frost, and fringed with
icicles. Yet in all there was ludicrous
suggestion of some sentiment past and I'M
seasonable; several dislodged stones of the
wall We're so disposed as to form bench
and seats, and under the elm trees film of
ice could still be seen carved on it's bark
the effigy of a heart, divers initials and the
legend, Thine Forever"
The stranger, however, kept his eyes
fixed only ON the farm shed and the open
field beside it. Five minutes passed in
fruitless expectancy. Ten minutes! And
then the rising moon slowly lifted herself
over the black range Of the Orange hills,
and looked at him, blushing little, as if
the appointment were her own.
The face and figure thus illuminated
were those Of strongly built, handsome
man of 30, so soldierly in bearing that It
needed not the buff epaulets and facings
to show his captains rank in the Cont
mental army. Yet there was something in
his facial expression that contradicted the
manliness of his presence-an irritation
and querulousness that were inconsistent
with his size and strength. This fretful-
ness increased as the moments went by
without sign or motion in the family Lit
field beyond, until, in peevish exaspera-
ton, he began to kick the nearer stones
against the wall.
"Moo-oo-wr'
The soldier started. Not that he was
frightened, nor that he had failed to rec
ognize in these prolonged syllables the
deep chested, half drowsy low of COW,
but that it was so near him-evidently |
just beside the wall. If an object so
bulky could have approached him SO near |